# Shocking(ly wrong) science headline **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 5, 2017, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-ly-wrong-science-headline/798030 "2017-10-05T16:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-ly-wrong-science-headline/798030/21 "2017-10-07T02:07:31Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Well, we did just have [a meteor](https://www.rt.com/news/405838-meteor-explodes-china-videos/) so impressive that the RT headline begins “Great Ball of Fire!” Where? Oh yeah, it lit the sky over Shangri-La. Shangri-fucking-La, people. This is a bad sign. Interesting. [Just got that name](https://wikitravel.org/en/Shangrila) [in 2001](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La_City). Myself, I’ve long lusted over having a piece of [The Meteorite From La Mancha](http://www.meteoriteguy.com/adventures/puertolapice/puertolapice.htm). (Sadly the official name is much more prosaic.) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-ly-wrong-science-headline/798030/22 "2017-10-07T02:44:18Z")
By interesting coincidence, while googling to see if any pieces of the Shangri-La fireball had been recovered, I found fresh stories about a meteorite [recovered](http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/local/article177398306.html) [on](http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/36540532/clemson-astrophysicists-examining-meteorite-believed-to-have-hit-a-pawleys-island-home) [Pawley Island](http://www.independentmail.com/story/news/2017/10/06/meteorite-hits-home-coastal-south-carolina/739254001/), South Carolina (which would be a big deal–[there are only 6 known meteorites for South Carolina](https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/metbull.php?sea=South+carolina&sfor=places&ants=&falls=&valids=&stype=contains&lrec=50&map=ge&browse=&country=United+States&srt=name&categ=All&mblist=All&rect=&phot=&snew=0&pnt=Normal%20table&dr=).) But. Fresh meteorites are a [black](https://www.meteorite.com/meteorite-finds/) as [coal](http://meteorite-identification.com/choice.html). If you manage to collect one before it has been touched by rain, it may even have a fine black powder on the surface that will rub off on your fingers. Looking at those photos, I’m very confident that it is a meteorite and very, very skeptical that it is a fresh one. It looks to me like it has been weathered and sandblasted, and it looks like there is a patch of rust leaking out onto the surface. If those photos are accurate, I’m willing to go out on a limb there and say that that couple is either the victim of a practical joke or the perpetrators of a fraud and that meteorite came off Ebay and that that meteorite has sat in the northern Sahara for a century or ten. (I started to search completed auctions, but there are too many of them.) (And before you ask, yes, I do believe that I know more about what fresh meteorites look like than a Clemson astrophysicist, depending on the astrophysicist. I own very fresh meteorites.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-ly-wrong-science-headline/798030/23 "2017-10-07T03:51:51Z")
Let’s not just make fun of this. Remember, this is what killed the dinosaurs off five thousand years ago. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-ly-wrong-science-headline/798030/24 "2017-10-07T04:18:06Z")
I was recently given an expensive pocket watch that is a tad hard to read because the face is a gallium-coated slice of a meteor from Finland. Very pretty, though. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2017, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-ly-wrong-science-headline/798030/25 "2017-10-07T04:42:06Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I was recently given an expensive pocket watch that is a tad hard to read because the face is a gallium-coated slice of a meteor from Finland. Very pretty, though. [It isn’t coated in gallium](https://www.starborncreations.com/Pocket-Watch-Muonionalusta-Meteorite-Gold-Plate-Quartz-Movement/WPWA2ME398/) (which would be an incredibly pointless thing to do) it is just that some sellers are for some reason mentioning the trace amounts of gallium found in [Muonionalusta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muonionalusta). (A few years back Rolex also did a watch with a meteorite dial, this time with [Gibeon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibeon_%28meteorite%29). I don’t have one of the watches, but I do have one of the cut but unused discs.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-ly-wrong-science-headline/798030.md?page=1)